Draco Makes a Difference

Summary: When Harry and his friends are captured and brought to Malfoy Manner, Draco realizes he has to protect his mate at all costs. Veela-fic one shot.

One Shot

The drawing room dazzled after the darkness outside; even
with his eyes almost closed Harry could make out the wide proportions of the
room. A crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling, more portraits against the
dark purple walls. Two figures rose from chairs in front of an ornate marble
fireplace as the prisoners were forced into the room by the Snatchers.

“What is this?”

The dreadfully familiar, drawling voice of Lucius Malfoy
fell on Harry’s ears. He was panicking now. He could see no way out, and it was
easier, as his fear mounted, to block out Voldemort’s thoughts, though his scar
was still burning.

Harry did not dare look directly at Draco, but saw him
obliquely; a figure slightly taller than he was, rising from an armchair, his
face a pale and pointed blur beneath white-blond hair.

Greyback forced the prisoners to turn again so as to place
Harry directly beneath the chandelier, pushing him down to his knees on the
marble floor.

“Well, boy?” rasped the werewolf.

Harry was facing a mirror over the fireplace, a great gilded
thing in an intricately scrolled frame. Through the slits of his eyes he saw
his own reflection for the first time since leaving Grimmauld Place.

His face was huge, shiny, and pink, every feature distorted
by Hermione’s jinx. His black hair reached his shoulders and there was a dark
shadow around his jaw. Had he not known that it was he who stood there, he
would have wondered who was wearing his glasses. He resolved not to speak, for
his voice was sure to give him away; yet he still avoided eye contact with
Draco as the latter approached.

“I can’t - I can’t be sure,” said Draco. He was keeping his
distance from Greyback, and seemed as scared of looking at Harry as Harry was
of looking at him.

“But look at him carefully, look! Come closer!” Harry had
never heard Lucius Malfoy so excited.

“You must be sure,” Bellatrix said in a low, dangerous
voice. “If we call the Dark Lord and this is not Harry Potter, he will not be
pleased.”

“Draco, if we are the ones who hand Potter over to the Dark
Lord, all will return to what it was, you understand?” Lucius hissed softly.
“Everything will be forgiv-”

“Now, we won’t be forgetting who actually caught him, I hope
Mr. Malfoy?” said Greyback menacingly.

Lucius turned stiffly, anger showing on his aristocratic
features. “You dare speak to me like that, in my own home?”

Narcissa stepped to her husband’s side, taking his arm and
pulling him away. Greyback followed for a few steps, then took Hermione’s arm
from the snatcher who held her.

“But look at him carefully, look!” cawed Bellatrix to Draco.
She grabbed hold of Harry’s hair and tilted his head back painfully. “Don’t be
shy, come closer!”

Draco approached Harry and knelt in front of him, so close
that Harry could see the usually languid, pale face in sharp detail even
through his swollen eyes. With his face a puffy mask, Harry felt as though he
was peering out from between the bars of a cage.

“What happened to his face?” Draco asked. His own face was
remarkably like his father’s, even to the excitement now burning in his eyes.

“He came to us this way,” one of the other snatchers
replied. “Ran into something in the woods, I reckon.”

“Or a stinging jinx,” Bellatrix said. She looked at
Hermione. “Was it you?” Bellatrix walked to where Ron and Hermione where being
held near one of the other snatchers who was holding a fistful of wands. “Let
us see her wand.”

Harry was surprised when Draco leaned close, rubbing his
nose against Harry’s ear as he breathed in deeply. A quick intake of breath
filled Harry’s nose with Draco’s scent, a clean smell of summer and sunshine
that made Harry lean forward, anxious to get closer to the smell.

The moment of peace was broken by Bellatrix screaming. “What
is that?” she demanded.

“Sword,” grunted an out-of-sight Snatcher.

“Give it to me.”

Draco pulled back enough to look into Harry’s eyes. He
frowned when he saw the swelling on Harry’s face and reached up to gently run a
hand down the puffed skin. Harry could feel the swelling ease, feel his skin
moving back into place as Draco’s touch healed him.

“Found you,” Draco breathed.

Then the voice of one of the snatchers rang out through the
room. “It’s not yours, missus, it’s mine, I reckon I found it.”

There was a bang and a flash of red light; Harry knew that
the Snatcher had been Stunned. There was a roar of anger from his fellows but
by that time Harry wasn’t paying attention to anything but Draco’s mouth on
his.

Draco tasted like peppermint tea and honey and Harry did his
best to lick every last bit of that taste from Draco’s mouth. It seemed as if
Draco had found something in Harry’s mouth that he liked as well.

Lucius froze, his index finger hovering over the Mark. Out
of the corners of his eyes Harry saw Bellatrix bearing down upon the werewolf,
the sword of Gryffindor gripped tightly in her hand, her face waxen.

“Where did you get this sword?” she whispered to Greyback as
she pulled his wand out of his unresisting grip.

“How dare you?” he snarled, his mouth the only thing that
could move as he was forced to gaze up at her. He bared his pointed teeth.
“Release me, woman!”

“Where did you find this sword?” she repeated, brandishing
it in his face. “Snape sent it to my vault in Gringotts!”

“It was in their tent,” rasped Greyback. “Release me, I
say!”

Ignoring his demands, Bellatrix flicked her wrist and a jet
of red light hit the werewolf. His eyes rolled back in his head and he fell to
the floor.

“Draco, move this scum outside,” said Bellatrix, indicating
the unconscious men. “If you haven’t got the guts to finish them, then leave
them in the courtyard for me.”

“Don’t you dare speak to Draco like-” said Narcissa
furiously, but Bellatrix screamed.

“Be quiet! The situation is graver than you can possibly
imagine, Cissy! We have a very serious problem! Where did you find this sword?”
she asked Ron, brandishing it in his face. “Snape sent it to my vault in
Gringotts!”

“We-we found it,” he told her.

“I’m going to ask you again!” Bellatrix demanded “Where did
you get this sword? Where?”

“We found it - we found it - PLEASE!” Hermione screamed.

Draco took Harry’s hand and stood, pulling Harry to his feet
as well. They could see that Bellatrix had a hold of Hermione’s hair and the
tip of the sword was pressed against the girl’s neck.

“You’re lying, filthy Mudblood, and I know it! You have been
inside my vault at Gringotts!” she screamed. “What else did you take? What else
have you got? Tell me the truth or, I swear, I shall run you through with this
knife!”

“She is a danger to you,” Draco told Harry and, turning, he
pointed his wand at Bellatrix’s back. “Avada Kedavra.”

A flash of green light flew across the room and hit
Bellatrix squarely between the shoulder blades. Without a sound, the woman fell
to the floor, dead, her unseeing eyes staring at the chandelier, the sword
falling with a clatter at her side.

“Draco?” Lucius whispered. “What - how did you -”

“What have you done?” Narcissa exclaimed, looking at her
fallen sister.

“We must call the Dark Lord,” Lucius said firmly, reaching
for his Dark Mark once more, only to stop when Draco pointed his wand in his
father’s direction.

“Draco?” Narcissa asked sharply.

Lucius simply looked at the tip of his son’s wand. “You
would kill me, Draco?”

“He’s not a great wizard, Father,” Draco answered
disdainfully. “He’s a bully.”

“Do not-”

“I will speak of him as I wish,” Draco replied fiercely.
“Look what he’s done to you, father, what he’s done to our family. He treats
you worse than the dirt beneath his feet, he took your wand! It kills me to see
the way he treats you, the way he treats us. I woke up every morning believing
that one of us would die before the day ended and I endured it because there
was no choice, but now there is, Father. We can choose to fight him. We can
help Harry defeat him!”

Lucius shook his head. “The Dark Lord has promised us many
things, the preservation of our culture, freedom for those pure of blood to
continue our way of life -”

“He’s not a pure blood,” Harry told them.

Lucius took an angry step forward. “How dare you?”

“It’s true,” Harry insisted. “He told me so himself.”

“But why would he -”

“The diary you gave Ginny,” Hermione explained. “It held a
piece of his soul inside of it. That soul possessed Ginny, and it would have
killed her if Harry hadn’t found them in the Chamber of Secrets and saved her.”

“It is true that Merope Gaunt was his mother,” Harry told
Lucius, “and that she was a descendant of Salazar Slytherin, but his father was
a muggle.”

“A halfblood?” Narcissa breathed.

“Vol-”

Draco cut off the name by putting a finger over Harry’s
lips. Harry looked at him apologetically, irritated with himself that he’d
completely forgotten about the curse on Voldemort’s name. Harry wrapped his
fingers around Draco’s wrist and lowered it, but didn’t let it go.

“His real name is Tom Riddle, he’s named after his muggle
father,” Harry said. “It was his father’s grave that we fought on, the night he
got his body back. I’ve been in his head, I know how he thinks. Tom Riddle
doesn’t care about pure bloods or muggleborns or your culture or any of his
followers. The only thing he cares about is power.”

The news seemed to have stunned Lucius. The older wizard
stumbled over to the chairs near the fireplace and sat down heavily.

“Do you really think you can win?” Narcissa asked.

“Yeah, I think so.” Harry looked at Ron and Hermione and
debated telling the rest of the truth, but Hermione had started the tale by
mentioning the piece of soul in the diary. “Tom Riddle came back because he
split his soul into pieces and hid them.”

“Harry,” Ron warned in a low voice.

“Dumbledore believed that there were seven,” Harry
continued. “We’ve already destroyed three. One was the diary you gave to
Ginny-”

“Dear Merlin,” Lucius breathed, covering his face with his
hands.

“-that I destroyed with a Basilisk fang in the Chamber of
Secrets. Dumbledore destroyed the second one, a ring. And just a few weeks
ago,” he looked at Ron, “Ron destroyed one with that sword.”

“The darkest magics...” Lucius muttered, shaking his head in
horror.

“No wonder he is insane,” Narcissa said, her voice wavering.

“Harry, Bellatrix was certain we’d gotten the sword from her
vault,” Hermione told him. “She was terrified we had taken something else from
it. I think maybe -”

“She told me he had given her something to keep safe,
something precious,” Narcissa told them. “Do you think it could be one of these
things?”

“Yeah,” Harry replied. “Can you help us get it?”

“It must be done carefully,” Draco warned him. “The Dark
Lord cannot learn of this until all of these things have been destroyed. Do you
know where the rest of them are?”

“No idea,” Harry admitted.

“We are doomed,” Lucius moaned.

“Dumbledore believed that Riddle collected trophies,”
Hermione said, “that he made horcruxes out of them. Riddle had a goblet that
was said to have belonged to Helga Hufflepuff. We think he made that a
horcrux.”

Draco nodded. “That leaves three.”

“We don’t know what the other ones are. We’ve been searching
since the ministry fell, but we haven’t had much luck,” Harry told them.

“Maybe he gave them to the other death eaters?” Hermione
suggested.

“There aren’t many that he would trust enough,” Narcissa
replied.

“He trusted your husband with one,” Ron pointed out.

Lucius sighed. “He did trust me once, but no longer. Bella
was his most devoted servant; he may indeed have given one to her keeping.
Now...”

“Snape.” Draco’s voice was bitter, spitting the word as if
it were poison.

“Yes,” Lucius murmured, “it is possible.”

Harry shook his head. “Snape would never help us.”

Lucius stood up. In that moment he looked the proud pure
blood wizard he had looked before his visit to Azkaban. “He would never help
you.”

“He would never work against the Dark Lord,” Draco
protested.

“Are you so sure he would not help us, Draco?” Narcissa
asked. “He did stand by his word last year.”

The drawing room dazzled after the darkness outside; even
with his eyes almost closed Harry could make out the wide proportions of the
room. A crystal chandelier hung from the ceiling, more portraits against the
dark purple walls. Two figures rose from chairs in front of an ornate marble
fireplace as the prisoners were forced into the room by the Snatchers.

“What is this?”

The dreadfully familiar, drawling voice of Lucius Malfoy
fell on Harry’s ears. He was panicking now. He could see no way out, and it was
easier, as his fear mounted, to block out Voldemort’s thoughts, though his scar
was still burning.

Harry did not dare look directly at Draco, but saw him
obliquely; a figure slightly taller than he was, rising from an armchair, his
face a pale and pointed blur beneath white-blond hair.

Greyback forced the prisoners to turn again so as to place
Harry directly beneath the chandelier, pushing him down to his knees on the
marble floor.

“Well, boy?” rasped the werewolf.

Harry was facing a mirror over the fireplace, a great gilded
thing in an intricately scrolled frame. Through the slits of his eyes he saw
his own reflection for the first time since leaving Grimmauld Place.

His face was huge, shiny, and pink, every feature distorted
by Hermione’s jinx. His black hair reached his shoulders and there was a dark
shadow around his jaw. Had he not known that it was he who stood there, he
would have wondered who was wearing his glasses. He resolved not to speak, for
his voice was sure to give him away; yet he still avoided eye contact with
Draco as the latter approached.

“I can’t - I can’t be sure,” said Draco. He was keeping his
distance from Greyback, and seemed as scared of looking at Harry as Harry was
of looking at him.

“But look at him carefully, look! Come closer!” Harry had
never heard Lucius Malfoy so excited.

“You must be sure,” Bellatrix said in a low, dangerous
voice. “If we call the Dark Lord and this is not Harry Potter, he will not be
pleased.”

“Draco, if we are the ones who hand Potter over to the Dark
Lord, all will return to what it was, you understand?” Lucius hissed softly.
“Everything will be forgiv-”

“Now, we won’t be forgetting who actually caught him, I hope
Mr. Malfoy?” said Greyback menacingly.

Lucius turned stiffly, anger showing on his aristocratic
features. “You dare speak to me like that, in my own home?”

Narcissa stepped to her husband’s side, taking his arm and
pulling him away. Greyback followed for a few steps, then took Hermione’s arm
from the snatcher who held her.

“But look at him carefully, look!” cawed Bellatrix to Draco.
She grabbed hold of Harry’s hair and tilted his head back painfully. “Don’t be
shy, come closer!”

Draco approached Harry and knelt in front of him, so close
that Harry could see the usually languid, pale face in sharp detail even
through his swollen eyes. With his face a puffy mask, Harry felt as though he
was peering out from between the bars of a cage.

“What happened to his face?” Draco asked. His own face was
remarkably like his father’s, even to the excitement now burning in his eyes.

“He came to us this way,” one of the other snatchers
replied. “Ran into something in the woods, I reckon.”

“Or a stinging jinx,” Bellatrix said. She looked at
Hermione. “Was it you?” Bellatrix walked to where Ron and Hermione where being
held near one of the other snatchers who was holding a fistful of wands. “Let
us see her wand.”

Harry was surprised when Draco leaned close, rubbing his
nose against Harry’s ear as he breathed in deeply. A quick intake of breath
filled Harry’s nose with Draco’s scent, a clean smell of summer and sunshine
that made Harry lean forward, anxious to get closer to the smell.

The moment of peace was broken by Bellatrix screaming. “What
is that?” she demanded.

“Sword,” grunted an out-of-sight Snatcher.

“Give it to me.”

Draco pulled back enough to look into Harry’s eyes. He
frowned when he saw the swelling on Harry’s face and reached up to gently run a
hand down the puffed skin. Harry could feel the swelling ease, feel his skin
moving back into place as Draco’s touch healed him.

“Found you,” Draco breathed.

Then the voice of one of the snatchers rang out through the
room. “It’s not yours, missus, it’s mine, I reckon I found it.”

There was a bang and a flash of red light; Harry knew that
the Snatcher had been Stunned. There was a roar of anger from his fellows but
by that time Harry wasn’t paying attention to anything but Draco’s mouth on
his.

Draco tasted like peppermint tea and honey and Harry did his
best to lick every last bit of that taste from Draco’s mouth. It seemed as if
Draco had found something in Harry’s mouth that he liked as well.

Lucius froze, his index finger hovering over the Mark. Out
of the corners of his eyes Harry saw Bellatrix bearing down upon the werewolf,
the sword of Gryffindor gripped tightly in her hand, her face waxen.

“Where did you get this sword?” she whispered to Greyback as
she pulled his wand out of his unresisting grip.

“How dare you?” he snarled, his mouth the only thing that
could move as he was forced to gaze up at her. He bared his pointed teeth.
“Release me, woman!”

“Where did you find this sword?” she repeated, brandishing
it in his face. “Snape sent it to my vault in Gringotts!”

“It was in their tent,” rasped Greyback. “Release me, I
say!”

Ignoring his demands, Bellatrix flicked her wrist and a jet
of red light hit the werewolf. His eyes rolled back in his head and he fell to
the floor.

“Draco, move this scum outside,” said Bellatrix, indicating
the unconscious men. “If you haven’t got the guts to finish them, then leave
them in the courtyard for me.”

“Don’t you dare speak to Draco like-” said Narcissa
furiously, but Bellatrix screamed.

“Be quiet! The situation is graver than you can possibly
imagine, Cissy! We have a very serious problem! Where did you find this sword?”
she asked Ron, brandishing it in his face. “Snape sent it to my vault in
Gringotts!”

“We-we found it,” he told her.

“I’m going to ask you again!” Bellatrix demanded “Where did
you get this sword? Where?”

“We found it - we found it - PLEASE!” Hermione screamed.

Draco took Harry’s hand and stood, pulling Harry to his feet
as well. They could see that Bellatrix had a hold of Hermione’s hair and the
tip of the sword was pressed against the girl’s neck.

“You’re lying, filthy Mudblood, and I know it! You have been
inside my vault at Gringotts!” she screamed. “What else did you take? What else
have you got? Tell me the truth or, I swear, I shall run you through with this
knife!”

“She is a danger to you,” Draco told Harry and, turning, he
pointed his wand at Bellatrix’s back. “Avada Kedavra.”

A flash of green light flew across the room and hit
Bellatrix squarely between the shoulder blades. Without a sound, the woman fell
to the floor, dead, her unseeing eyes staring at the chandelier, the sword
falling with a clatter at her side.

“Draco?” Lucius whispered. “What - how did you -”

“What have you done?” Narcissa exclaimed, looking at her
fallen sister.

“We must call the Dark Lord,” Lucius said firmly, reaching
for his Dark Mark once more, only to stop when Draco pointed his wand in his
father’s direction.

“Draco?” Narcissa asked sharply.

Lucius simply looked at the tip of his son’s wand. “You
would kill me, Draco?”

“He’s not a great wizard, Father,” Draco answered
disdainfully. “He’s a bully.”

“Do not-”

“I will speak of him as I wish,” Draco replied fiercely.
“Look what he’s done to you, father, what he’s done to our family. He treats
you worse than the dirt beneath his feet, he took your wand! It kills me to see
the way he treats you, the way he treats us. I woke up every morning believing
that one of us would die before the day ended and I endured it because there
was no choice, but now there is, Father. We can choose to fight him. We can
help Harry defeat him!”

Lucius shook his head. “The Dark Lord has promised us many
things, the preservation of our culture, freedom for those pure of blood to
continue our way of life -”

“He’s not a pure blood,” Harry told them.

Lucius took an angry step forward. “How dare you?”

“It’s true,” Harry insisted. “He told me so himself.”

“But why would he -”

“The diary you gave Ginny,” Hermione explained. “It held a
piece of his soul inside of it. That soul possessed Ginny, and it would have
killed her if Harry hadn’t found them in the Chamber of Secrets and saved her.”

“It is true that Merope Gaunt was his mother,” Harry told
Lucius, “and that she was a descendant of Salazar Slytherin, but his father was
a muggle.”

“A halfblood?” Narcissa breathed.

“Vol-”

Draco cut off the name by putting a finger over Harry’s
lips. Harry looked at him apologetically, irritated with himself that he’d
completely forgotten about the curse on Voldemort’s name. Harry wrapped his
fingers around Draco’s wrist and lowered it, but didn’t let it go.

“His real name is Tom Riddle, he’s named after his muggle
father,” Harry said. “It was his father’s grave that we fought on, the night he
got his body back. I’ve been in his head, I know how he thinks. Tom Riddle
doesn’t care about pure bloods or muggleborns or your culture or any of his
followers. The only thing he cares about is power.”

The news seemed to have stunned Lucius. The older wizard
stumbled over to the chairs near the fireplace and sat down heavily.

“Do you really think you can win?” Narcissa asked.

“Yeah, I think so.” Harry looked at Ron and Hermione and
debated telling the rest of the truth, but Hermione had started the tale by
mentioning the piece of soul in the diary. “Tom Riddle came back because he
split his soul into pieces and hid them.”

“Harry,” Ron warned in a low voice.

“Dumbledore believed that there were seven,” Harry
continued. “We’ve already destroyed three. One was the diary you gave to
Ginny-”

“Dear Merlin,” Lucius breathed, covering his face with his
hands.

“-that I destroyed with a Basilisk fang in the Chamber of
Secrets. Dumbledore destroyed the second one, a ring. And just a few weeks
ago,” he looked at Ron, “Ron destroyed one with that sword.”

“The darkest magics...” Lucius muttered, shaking his head in
horror.

“No wonder he is insane,” Narcissa said, her voice wavering.

“Harry, Bellatrix was certain we’d gotten the sword from her
vault,” Hermione told him. “She was terrified we had taken something else from
it. I think maybe -”

“She told me he had given her something to keep safe,
something precious,” Narcissa told them. “Do you think it could be one of these
things?”

“Yeah,” Harry replied. “Can you help us get it?”

“It must be done carefully,” Draco warned him. “The Dark
Lord cannot learn of this until all of these things have been destroyed. Do you
know where the rest of them are?”

“No idea,” Harry admitted.

“We are doomed,” Lucius moaned.

“Dumbledore believed that Riddle collected trophies,”
Hermione said, “that he made horcruxes out of them. Riddle had a goblet that
was said to have belonged to Helga Hufflepuff. We think he made that a
horcrux.”

Draco nodded. “That leaves three.”

“We don’t know what the other ones are. We’ve been searching
since the ministry fell, but we haven’t had much luck,” Harry told them.

“Maybe he gave them to the other death eaters?” Hermione
suggested.

“There aren’t many that he would trust enough,” Narcissa
replied.

“He trusted your husband with one,” Ron pointed out.

Lucius sighed. “He did trust me once, but no longer. Bella
was his most devoted servant; he may indeed have given one to her keeping.
Now...”

“Snape.” Draco’s voice was bitter, spitting the word as if
it were poison.

“Yes,” Lucius murmured, “it is possible.”

Harry shook his head. “Snape would never help us.”

Lucius stood up. In that moment he looked the proud pure
blood wizard he had looked before his visit to Azkaban. “He would never help
you.”

“He would never work against the Dark Lord,” Draco
protested.

“Are you so sure he would not help us, Draco?” Narcissa
asked. “He did stand by his word last year.”

Ben Gauger:
Kudos go to Liz Aguilar, author of To Have And to Hold a fast-paced, gripping, adrenaline rush from start to finish, one of perhaps the finest pieces of writing I've ever read, in particular because of its' telenovela-like feel, May she continually find success as an author. Bravo my dear, bravo!

263Adder:
Okay so I adore this story. I only knocked one star off plot for historical inaccuracies because I'm a bit of a stickler for that. The ending broke my heart though, considering you already changed history couldn't you (SPOILER) change it a bit more and have them together!!!! I want an alternative...

mrh:
This interesting take on the Harry Potter series fascinated me from line one on. I am in love with this tale and its characters and cannot wait to read the next chapter. I look forward to more soon.When can I expect the next chapter? I am so excited to read it!

Tiffany Thomson:
This story is not something I would normally pick up and read but I'm so glad I did, I wasn't able to put it down and my husband was yelling at me at 3am to put it down and go to bed (just waited for him to doze back off before picking it back up) I really hope Natalie brings out another book eit...

LouiseJ2:
I enjoyed the detail you went into with regards to the case. It made the UNSUB appear believable. The crisis in the middle of the story was my favorite part, very dramatic but not over the top. I feel like sometimes pairings can be overdone but I liked that some of the relationships were a little...

Melderise:
This is just an amazing novel that teaches you how to break the bonds of reality. It shows how the most fascinating story can start from the most regular environment and then leading the reader to the dream destinations...

:
This is my first book reading on here and I absolutely loved it! If you like a book that'll keep you up late at night then this is your go to. What makes this novel so special is that it shows that even if your not blood related some people would put your needs before there's.

FateFellShort:
I have read this story and have followed the writers on tumblr from the beginning. Its a wonderful story. Beautifully written with a really nice pace, that makes it enjoyable to read more than once. For me, fairy tail has very good characters but what the writers have done is give them more depth...